Packagings for food products fulfil several functions. They not only allow to condition, transport, store and distribute food products to the consumers in a safe, hygienic and convenient way, but they also provide with a visual support for commercial advertisement.
The existing packagings are very varied both in terms of material constituents and shapes. The most common ones are rigid boxes that are made of cardboard, rigid plastic or metal such as steel. They can have several sides and they are generally of regular shape, such as a rectangular (parrallepipedic) shape. However this shape limitation has some inconvenients since it is difficult to access to the content of said boxes due to the rigidity of the packagings. Some irregular shapes (e.g. trapezoidal) have also been developed in order to offer a wider opening and therefore a better access to the content of the packagings. However these packagings also have major drawbacks such as higher production costs (since more materials are needed to get this specific enlarged shape), manufacturing constraints, but also storing and transportation constraints due to these irregular shapes.
Alternatively, flexible pouches or packages have been used since decades for food and beverages retail. Such pouches are made with flexible material such as a plastic film, paper and/or aluminium. One of the main advantages of the flexible pouches is that generally fewer materials are needed in comparison with the rigid packagings since the content of the pouches is more accessible due to the flexibility of these packagings. They are therefore less expensive in terms of material constituents and less heavy. On the other hand, the most common technology to produce these pouches is Vertical form-Fill-Seal (VFFS), which brings some limitations to the possibilities of shapes since the final pouch is vertical and its bottom has the same perimeter as its opening. Another major drawback of the standard flexible pouches is that they generally do not stand up independently upright due to the nature of their constituents and therefore do not offer a convenient accessibility of the food product to the consumers. Therefore several types of stand-up pouches have been developed. EP1947023 discloses a particular flat bag type storage bag, including a three-sided bag, a twofold bag and a two-sided bag which enables self-supporting after content storage. U.S. Pat. No. 5,772,332 describes a container made of flexible film sheets that have essentially a rectangular base. EP334242 describes a stand-up plastic bag which comprises two side walls and a curved bottom. WO2008150736 describes a stand-up package with four sides allowing an easy dispensing of the products, in particular granular or powdery products. EP1305224 describes a stand-up bag of heat-sealable plastic film comprising side seams and a bottom wall folded inwards into V-shape. These packages have the advantages to provide a suitable stability of the packaging.
Typically, the consumers open the stand-up pouches made of flexible material either by tearing or ripping one sealed extremity. Once opened, the consumers can reach the product and the pouch stably stands up even once emptied. However, the product accessibility is substantially decreased when the level of the product in the pouch decreases. Indeed, the opening is relatively narrow and the consumers cannot easily introduce their hands or any device to extract the product out of the pouch. Moreover, while tempting to extract the product near the bottom of the pouch, the pouch can fold on itself, thereby narrowing even more the opening of the pouch and impairing a complete recovery of the content of the pouch. It is particularly true for powdered products when using a scoop for example.
There is therefore a need to develop a flexible pouch which allows a better accessibility to its content whatever the level of the product enclosed into the pouch, providing the right balance between accessibility and stability of the package when it stands upright, without impairing the process efficiency in terms of quantity of materials used for the manufacturing, production costs, sustainability, storing and transportation.